Comments on: Comments on 17083

Post number 17083

skallas — Sun, 12 May 2002 12:34:13 -0800

Katarina Witt's Stasi connection. SECRET police files on Katarina Witt have revealed that the most glamorous and popular sporting figure in the former East Germany was so close to the Stasi that she considered them a "partner".

By: swell

swell — Sun, 12 May 2002 14:09:53 -0800

Um, it's the Stasi. Those guys make the FBI and the KGB look like wannabe's. What was shocking about the Stasi was not that they held sway over prominent citizens like Witt, but how far down the totem pole they managed to get - they had legions of Joe Six-Pack types informing on their relatively harmless neighbors. Seems to me Ms Witt would be better off just shrugging her shouders and pointing out that everybody else did it too, rather than drawing attention to it with a lawsuit.

By: srboisvert

srboisvert — Sun, 12 May 2002 14:16:12 -0800

You mean an olympic athelete had government ties? I'm shocked! Of course in the U.S. the kneecapping is privatized to allow the free market to introduce efficiency.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sun, 12 May 2002 14:32:10 -0800

The disclosures suggest that Ms Witt, 36, who posed naked for Playboy in 1998, was one of the East German regime's most willing accomplices." I love how they stuck that little tidbit in.

By: Postroad

Postroad — Sun, 12 May 2002 16:12:19 -0800

Lordy lord--I wish I was with the Stasi and she cooperated with me. What's a state appratus for if not to help out. She noted that her support of them helped her career. Gosh, sort of like Enron helping political figures. Well we have her on our side now and so all ends well.

By: RylandDotNet

RylandDotNet — Sun, 12 May 2002 17:46:54 -0800

I have to agree with swell; this is no big deal. Ms. Witt is making it into a big deal with a lawsuit - one wonders if she's sincere, or if it's just a publicity stunt.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Sun, 12 May 2002 21:47:29 -0800

I am shocked, shocked, that only the most expressively loyal East German citizens were permitted abroad to pursue their sport. Naturally, her inclinations were only proven further when in the 1990s she began the Double Axel Tendency, a mass movement of figure skaters which briefly held sway in many of the Ostland's legislative seats, and threatened the democratic order of post-unification Germany. No, wait, she avoided politics, continued to skate, and posed nude for Playboy. My mistake.

By: i_am_joe's_spleen

i_am_joe's_spleen — Sun, 12 May 2002 23:48:26 -0800

I would be more distressed at her collaboration with the disgusting Stasi if it were not clear that she was raised to it from the age of nine. I don't think you can hold her to the same moral standard that you someone who was first approached as an adult.

By: pracowity

pracowity — Mon, 13 May 2002 02:21:44 -0800

This explains how she managed to smuggle balloons so easily across the Iron Curtain all those years.

By: arf

arf — Mon, 13 May 2002 05:20:11 -0800

As an East-German I have to agree with swell and RylandDotNet: this is no big deal. Apparently, there is not a big difference between working for the Stasi to have an easier life and mobbing your co-workers for the sake your carreer. Unfortunately.